Heaping Measures
Today I am grateful for my job and the connections I have made there. I am also grateful for another warm day. It was great to run in just shorts and a t-shirt yesterday.
My daily gratitude journal is full of quotes surrounding the word gratitude. Below is one I came across in early April. It is a nice extension of my post Sunday about gifts or entitlements.
"I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate good . . . If we will take the good we find . . . we shall have heaping measures." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
If we will take the good we find. That is what gratitude practice asks of us. Take the good. Notice the gifts. It also tells me to watch my expectations. If I expect too much, I will be disappointed.
I have been a big fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson since I was in grade school and read his saying: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." My memory tells me I first saw the quote on a nice poster at school. I appreciate the sentiment here as well. Where we have been and where we are going aren't as important as who we are, genuinely who we are.
Do I know who I am today? I do. I am a wife, mother, recovering alcoholic, friend, sister, runner, writer, blogger and more. I am so very grateful for all of these roles that define me and give me purpose. Heaping measures indeed!
My daily gratitude journal is full of quotes surrounding the word gratitude. Below is one I came across in early April. It is a nice extension of my post Sunday about gifts or entitlements.
"I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate good . . . If we will take the good we find . . . we shall have heaping measures." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
If we will take the good we find. That is what gratitude practice asks of us. Take the good. Notice the gifts. It also tells me to watch my expectations. If I expect too much, I will be disappointed.
I have been a big fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson since I was in grade school and read his saying: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." My memory tells me I first saw the quote on a nice poster at school. I appreciate the sentiment here as well. Where we have been and where we are going aren't as important as who we are, genuinely who we are.
Do I know who I am today? I do. I am a wife, mother, recovering alcoholic, friend, sister, runner, writer, blogger and more. I am so very grateful for all of these roles that define me and give me purpose. Heaping measures indeed!
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